Right from the Start: Taking Charge in a New Leadership Role [Hardcover]

Dan Ciampa (Author), Michael Watkins (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1999

Have you recently been handed a new leadership challenge? Are you about to start a new job, or are you expecting a big promotion? With today's surge in start-ups, spin-offs, change initiatives, and reorganizations, chances are that you'll be in a position to accept a leadership role sometime soon. Before you do, let "Right from the Start" show you how to balance the tensions and challenges inherent in any leadership transition. It will prepare you for the often-treacherous task of navigating an organization's strategy, politics, and culture so that you can smoothly and effectively get to work on your new agenda.Whether you are succeeding a much-admired boss or charged with implementing sweeping, potentially unsettling change initiatives, a new role is fraught with obstacles that can undermine your efforts to establish authority and build support. In "Right from the Start", authors Ciampa and Watkins lay out an action-oriented framework to follow during the first six months in a new job. The tactical advice is supplemented with absorbing profiles of CEOs, COOs, and EVPs who candidly discuss their experiences - the successes and the failures - with transitioning to a new leadership role. Make no mistake, say the authors: the planning you do before you take the leadership reins is critical to achieving your goals. "Right from the Start", with its timeless lessons of leadership, succession, and transition, is for everyone who wants to ensure that their first steps in a new job will be the ones that lead to enduring success.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

According to Dan Ciampa and Michael Watkins, 64 percent of executives hired form the outside won't make it in their new jobs. While executives from within the ranks know the challenges, culture, and politics of a company, newcomers face a corporate minefield. Right from the Start is Ciampa and Watkins's survival manual for leaders taking starting work at a new company. "Leadership is never easy," they write. "This is never truer than when a new leader enters an organization from the outside and must change its culture in fundamental ways." Through interviews with dozens of corporate leaders who have succeeded or failed in such transitions, the authors provide a strategy for getting it right from the outset.

Ciampa, an independent consultant, and Watkins, a Harvard Business School associate professor, advise three key missions for new leaders: Create momentum; master the ability to learn, convey a vision, and build coalitions; and know and manage yourself well. A fast start is especially crucial. In fact, they say, the most important period starts with the recruitment or interview process and runs through the first six months in a new role. Right from the Start provides plenty of real-life examples of successes and failures, in everything from building coalitions to changing corporate culture. The stories tend to suffer sometimes because the executives remain anonymous. Nonetheless, the book is instructive for business people assuming new management roles. --Dan Ring

Review

"An ordered approach to new leadership assignments that holds value for anyone at the executive level." -- Training, August 1999

"Offers practical advice and inspiration for new managers to help them get off on the right foot and make the most of their new positions." -- Computerworld, August 23, 1999

"This book can help the recently promoted cope with those frightening career moments that arise as soon as you get what you're after." -- BookPage, July 1999

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Business Press; 1 edition (July 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0875847501
• ISBN-13: 978-0875847504
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #630,705 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A 'must read' for any leader entering a new organization, August 24, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Right from the Start: Taking Charge in a New Leadership Role (Hardcover)

I found Right from the Start an extremely well researched and comprehensive set of tools which will greatly benefit any senior executive entering a new organization. It is the only book I have read which so clearly outlines the management pitfalls awaiting any new leader in his first few weeks on the job. I find it hard to imagine how even the most talented and experienced manager could not benefit from such a practical and common sense approach to the challenging task of taking over the leadership reins of a new organization, regardless of its size. As a venture capitalist and LBO investor, I plan to give copies to anybody entering the executive suites of all the companies in which my money is invested.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great gift for a friend strarting a new job at a new company, April 12, 2000

By 

DrewFromNY "drewfromny" (New York, New York USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Right from the Start: Taking Charge in a New Leadership Role (Hardcover)

I bought this book for a friend who was leaving one investment bank to head up a group at another bank. After reading the book, he told me that the situations described and issues discussed were dead on correct. He had thought that the challenges he faced were unique, but amazingly this book had illustrated the many common issues facing managers in a new company and gave useful guidance in how to deal with them. Oddly, he said that he couldn't put the book down--praise usually reserved for a thriller. Evidently, it applies when a book can improve your life as well.

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding approach, May 21, 2000

By 

Paul Mitchell (Miami) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Right from the Start: Taking Charge in a New Leadership Role (Hardcover)

Thoroughly enjoyed this book. It has helped me and my fellow co-workers navigate through our new leadership roles, which seem to change frequently! Book is well-written and straightforward.

Also recommend the popular new manager's book "The Leader's Guide: 15 Essential Skills."